18. An Impecunious Election: The significance of fiscal and economic issues John Wanna This election will be about who the Australian people best trust to lead them through the difficult new economic challenges that now lie ahead.—PM Kevin Rudd, August 2013. This election is not just about economic management but economic management is the core issue because everything else—national security, border security, the delivery of better schools and hospitals, and the successful implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme—needs a strong economy to be sustainable.—Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, September 2013.1 Fiscal and economic policy loomed large as a policy contest in the 2013 election, but as an issue or set of issues it failed to capture the public mood or spark much overwhelming interest.2 Economic issues were more latent than front and centre, when some commentators felt that ‘the economy should have been the cornerstone of the whole campaign’ (see Harmon 2013). Indeed, the AES survey conducted immediately after the election found, unsurprisingly, that the management of the economy was rated by 94.5 per cent of respondents as very important and 81.4 per cent similarly thought taxation issues were important, but these attitudes did not shape the campaign strategies markedly (Bean et al. 2014: 79, 82).3 Worries of an impending economic recession were pronounced; escalating job losses occurring in the manufacturing and service sectors and in the public sector, investment trending downward, the mining boom coming off the boil, and fragilities in the retail sector, all added to the sense of nervousness and uncertainty. In addition, the Government’s fiscal/budget difficulties and especially the depressed state of revenue returns kept the attention on the Government’s performance with respect to economic management. Other 1 Rudd and Abbott quotes taken, respectively, from Abbott and Rudd 2013 and Abbott 2013. 2 Previous Australian election studies have rarely included separate chapters on the economy, business or fiscal policies; the exceptions in recent years are the collections produced for the 2007 and 2010 elections (see references in the Preface). Overseas electoral studies also rarely include chapters on the salience of economic issues in campaigns. 3 Moreover, some 27.5 per cent of respondents stated that the management of the economy was the most important issue during the campaign (the highest proportion) and a further 13.9 per cent claimed it was the second most important issue (again the highest combined salience) (see Bean et al. 2014: 86). 311 Abbott’s Gambit: The 2013 Australian Federal Election ‘failings’ brought on by the Government itself, such as its flawed and inflated estimates of economic growth forecasts, its overly optimistic projections of revenue receipts, and total lack of credibility in its sanguine budget projections of an imminent surplus, only magnified the impression the Government did not really know what it was doing. Plausible explanations of why the economy was not more prominent as an electoral issue may include the fact that the Australian economy was comparatively not in a bad condition—inflation (+/-2 per cent) and unemployment (around 5.7 per cent) were relatively low, economic growth was positive (2.5 per cent), and the mining boom (commodity markets) had insulated the economy by maintaining export levels and sustained growth in the states of Western Australia and Queensland. Real incomes were rising by 3 pecent per annum. Yet, household cost of living pressures were mounting both in real terms (household utility bills) and as an electoral issue (living affordability); and there were regular media accounts of the increased incidence of poverty and welfare/food handouts. The structural budgetary problem was not something Labor was likely to canvass widely in the campaign, and the Coalition had to be very selective in its attacks because going too hard on this issue would raise fears of the necessary cuts the conservatives would have to make to return to surplus. To keep the issue alive but contained the Coalition proclaimed that Australia faced a real ‘budget emergency’ and mounting debt levels. The other important factor about fiscal management was that, because economic activity was relatively flat, there was no real prospect of new money for policy announcements in the campaign or for the foreseeable future. Hence, an impecunious election was fought with virtually no vote buying to leaven the tedium of campaign negativity. The election was fought in a Micawber- like trance with both sides eschewing major spending commitments—only the Greens who were unlikely to be called upon to implement any announcements made extravagant commitments. By the end of the election campaign the Coalition had made total promises amounting to $33.4 billion but offset by cuts of $42 billion, which over the four-year forward estimates saved the budget some $8 billion. The Coalition committed to spending on new roads ($5.4 billion), a paid parental leave scheme ($3.3 billion), direct action on climate change ($2 billion), and restoring the fringe benefits tax (FBT) concession for company cars ($1.8 billion). It also had to offset the abolition of the carbon and mining taxes ($9.7 billion) and a cut in company tax rates ($4.9 billion). The Coalition announced savings (cuts) to the public service, the school kids bonus, foreign aid, low income super contributions, regional infrastructure, and the refugee intake (and reduced spending by ‘stopping the boats’) as well as a new levy on companies to pay for 312 18 . An Impecunious Election the parental leave scheme. Labor by contrast promised a paltry $0.5 billion for better before and afterschool care, and its commitments amounted to a budget neutral stance. The primacy of economic policy and the disappearing surplus Economic and fiscal policies had been at the very forefront of the Labor Government’s agenda since the early onset of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008. Given the severe financial shock hit the Government almost immediately after it assumed office in its first term, economic concerns were a perennial priority for Labor. It implemented a series of five stimulus packages over 2008– 09, introduced an expansionary budget in May 2009, and then constantly wrestled with the difficulties of ‘fiscal consolidation’ with every budget from 2010–11 through to 2013–14—arguably presiding over a deterioration in public finances. The Government took some courageous fiscal measures in its first term that helped prevent Australia from suffering the magnitude of economic woes that afflicted the United States and most of Europe, but difficulties in rebalancing the budget gradually began to hurt the Government’s reputation and standing with business. Treasurer Wayne Swan had pledged to deliver a surplus (absolutely guaranteed, ‘come hell or high water’) by the end of June 2013. His bravado was pure bluff and exaggeration. When it became impossible to pretend that a surplus would eventuate by that date, Swan quietly announced just before the Christmas break that the surplus commitment would be jettisoned, initially postponing the surplus another year to 2014 before admitting it would not be achieved until 2016–17. Many commentators were either fatalistically resigned to the likelihood of yet another deficit, or were relatively positive about the news because they feared any further contractionary measures would tip Australia into a recession. By 2013 the deficit was around $40 billion for the year, and, counting the 2013–14 budget, Swan had delivered six consecutive deficit final budget outcomes, amounting to over $250 billion in total. On 1 August 2013, after the return of Rudd to the leadership, Chris Bowen, Labor’s new treasurer, had to introduce a mini budget and a new budget update (increasing the deficit projections to $58.8 billion over three years), with various ‘annoying’ tax increases mooted ($5 billion extra in tobacco excise, increases in the FBT, a tax on bank deposits, higher visa charges, and a higher efficiency dividend). Treasury had to accept some of the blame for the parlous decline in the Government’s reputation. The department made significant forecasting errors over the changing magnitude of the deficit (repeatedly overestimating taxation 313 Abbott’s Gambit: The 2013 Australian Federal Election receipts while underestimating the difficulties in re-balancing the books, or achieving ‘fiscal consolidation’). Treasury also invited criticism over its wayward miscalculation of the amount of revenues the Mining Resource Rent Tax would generate, with the actual tax delivering only a couple of hundred million dollars by early 2013 and not the $3 billion expected in the budget and nothing close to the $22.5 billion over four years as originally expected. The Treasury Secretary, Martin Parkinson, blamed his department for not having sufficient data on the assumptions the mining companies were making in calculating their liabilities. Antagonising constituencies Arguably, the Labor Government made some major economic policy mistakes in its relations with business and households. It repeatedly announced proposals that concentrated the economic pain on powerful constituencies while spreading the benefits thinly. The Mining Super Profit Tax (then the Mining Resource Rent Tax) was guilty of this, as was the Carbon Tax initiative with a bureaucratically- determined high price for emissions passed directly on to household consumers. Other additional levies for floods, health care and disability care were targeted to middle and higher PAYE income earners out of budgetary necessity. The treasurer also seriously proposed increasing the tax on wealthy superannuants, but other senior ministers such as Simon Crean came out publicly and said the Government ‘shouldn’t be taxing people’s [own] surpluses in order to fund our surpluses’ (Kelly 2013). Universities were slugged with an overall efficiency dividend raising some $900 million per annum to help offset the initial increased schools funding recommended by Gonski.